John welcomes back Pamela Ribon (Nimona, My Year of Dicks) to quietly ask: what’s with all the whispering in movies these days? They discuss trends and techniques in voice and volume, picking the right moment to whisper, and the value of voices across decibel levels.

We also revisit Pamela’s work on Moana to look at what you can learn from reading early drafts, ponder the threat of TikTok and YouTube, follow-up on vetting potential co-workers, and answer a listener question on writing animation.

In our bonus segment for premium members, Pam shares all her star-studded stories from sitting in the 5th row at this year’s Oscars.

Links:

• Pamela Ribon on Instagram
• Listen to Sassy
• My Year of Dicks
• Nimona on Netflix
• Hire Survivors Hollywood
• Dune: Part Two Clip
• ‘Fundie Baby Voice’ Seems To Be Everywhere Now. Here’s What You Should Know by Caroline Bologna for Huffpost
• In a World – Smoothie
• Natural Born Killers 1990 Draft
• Natural Born Killers 1993 Draft
• Lin-Manuel Miranda on ‘I Want’ Songs, Going Method for ‘Moana’ and Fearing David Bowie
• More (Outtake) from Moana
• How Far I’ll Go from Moana
• How Bad Can It Get for Hollywood? by Mark Harris for NYT
• This Sitcom Got WEIRD When Nobody Watched It by David Friedman
• Researching An Old Sitcom With AI by David Friedman
• Coucou French classes
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
• John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Vincent DeVito (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt with help from Chris Csont, and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.